In January 1906 Seattle Assistant City Engineer James C. Jeffery announced another round of street name changes. He explained that changes were necessary because sometimes there were two streets with the same name in different parts of the city. Other streets had confusing names and the city engineering department decided that simplification was needed.
Seattle newspapers noted the street-name ordinance which City Council was to vote for, and printed the list of all the proposed changes. Among the changes to be made, were street names in what is now the area around Seattle Pacific University on north Queen Anne.
The listing of streets in the Ross Addition and Ross Second Addition, was plats of land on both sides of today’s ship canal, on land once owned by the Ross family.
The reference to the Victory Addition included the present site of the Seattle Pacific University campus. One of the streets in that area was to be renamed “Humes Place.”
More population, more streets and houses
Seattle’s explosive growth in the 1890s led to the need to systematize the development of streets and street names. Seattle’s Great Fire of June 6, 1889, caused people to pour into the city to get in on the economic opportunities of rebuilding the downtown area. The post-fire sudden population boom also created a housing shortage. Many landowners began to file plats of land at that time so that they could sell lots for houses or commercial buildings. When they filed a plat, they named the streets in their project.
In what became known as The Great Renaming, in the year 1895 City Engineer R.H. Thomson issued the first set of proposed street names to give each street just one name along its entire length. Westlake Avenue, for example, had four different names as the street passed through the property of different owners. Giving each street just one unique name would give the fire department a better chance of finding addresses.
The Gold Rush of 1897 caused even more population growth as Seattle was advertised as the jumping-off place to the Klondike. In 1889 Seattle had only a few thousand people in residence. A year later, in 1890 the population was about 43,000. Ten years later, in the year 1900 the population was more than 80,000. By 1910 the population of Seattle was 237,000. By 1910 the boundaries of the City of Seattle had been expanded to include previous separate suburbs like Fremont and Ballard, which also caused these areas to need new street names consistent with the City of Seattle street naming system.
North Queen Anne developments
Map courtesy of HistoryLink
The area of north Queen Anne was only just starting to develop in the late 1880s. The Ross family had begun divesting their property in 1888, so that lots were beginning to be sold. More people began living in the area on both sides of Ross Creek, which existed before the creation of the ship canal in 1911-1917. Then the Fremont neighborhood opened as a planned development in 1888, which caused population growth around the north Lake Union area.
Nils B. Peterson and his wife Karen had a project in mind, and they realized that 1889 was the right time to strike. They had held their land on north Queen Anne while nurturing the dream of founding a Christian school.
The momentum of population growth in Seattle after the Fire in June 1889 caused a rise in the establishment of schools, and the Petersons were able to get other people on board to help fulfil their dream. The Petersons filed a plat called the Victory Addition and marked the Reserved section for the future school. The top line of the plat map is where Seattle Pacific University is located at 315 Bertona Street.
The lower left corner of the Victory Addition map shows Hill Street extending diagonally from 5th Ave West (on the left side) to 4th & Barrett Street. While it is true that Hill Street begins the ascent up the north face of Queen Anne Hill, we also know that the neighbor of this plat, adjoining on the left (west) side, was Reuben D. Hill. Although he wasn’t directly involved with the school which the Petersons were developing, he was a friendly neighbor with his house at 3229 6th Ave West (between Dravus & Cremona Streets). After he died in 1925 the site of his house was given by his family. Today the Hill Hall Dormitory of Seattle Pacific University is at 3231 6th Ave West on the former site of the Reuben Hill house.
From Hill to Humes
Humes Place West extends from Dravus to Barrett Streets.
As of January 1906, the proposed name change from Hill Street to Humes Place seemed to go through legislatively without any objections from the public.
Back in 1895, a humorous article in the Seattle Daily Intelligencer newspaper had implied that City Engineer R.H. Thomson was the one who was doing all of the street renamings. The article talked about requests and preferences of the public as to their new street names.
In the 1906 edition of street name changes, we note that it was Assistant City Engineer James C. Jeffery who made the announcement. We might guess that he had been the one to do some of that year’s renamings, especially since we know that he had been in the city engineering department during the administration of Mayor Thomas J. Humes.
Mayor Thomas Jefferson Humes
Thomas Jefferson Humes (1849-1904) had a classic life story of western migration across the USA and arrival in Seattle in its early years.
At age 21 Humes passed the bar exam in Iowa and moved to Kansas where he thought there would be more opportunities to develop his law practice. He rose to become county prosecutor and also served in the Kansas State Legislature. Despite these successes, the lure of the West caused him to move to Seattle in 1882. In Kansas his law partner had been Samuel H. Piles, who also decided to come to the Pacific Northwest, and who became the U.S. Senator from Washington State, 1905-1911. In his eulogy for T.J. Humes, Piles said that Humes had been “attracted by the fame and growth of the Pacific Coast Country.”
Thomas Jefferson Humes 1849-1904
In Seattle Thomas Jefferson Humes practiced law and served in the Territorial Legislature in 1887. In 1890 he was appointed as a judge in the King County Superior Court.
Judge Humes lived through some tumultuous days in Seattle, such as the Great Fire of June 6, 1889, which set off a lot of municipal reorganizing. Seattle began to raise the level of the downtown streets and set building codes for fire-resistant new construction. City government tried to cope with the deluge of people who poured into the city to get in on the rebuilding after the Fire.
The next crisis of opportunity in Seattle was set off by the Klondike Gold Rush in July 1897. The Seattle mayor at that time was William D. Wood who was the well-known developer of Green Lake and other land tracts with his father-in-law John Wallingford. Mayor Wood asked the City of Seattle for a leave of absence while he took the opportunity to develop a steamship transport company, to take advantage of the Klondike Gold Rush. The City denied the request for a leave of absence, and appointed Judge T.J. Humes as mayor in November 1897.
The City of Seattle in 1897
Trying to govern the City of Seattle in 1897 could be compared to trying to take a tiger by the tail. The Gold Rush caused another enormous population boom with the attendant problems of a housing shortage, crime, and stress on infrastructure such as the water supply system. Merchants poured into the city to sell the goods that Klondike miners would want to take with them. A huge vice district (saloons, prostitution and gambling) sprang up near the docks, train stations and hotels where newcomers to Seattle would arrive.
Throughout Mayor Humes’ three terms in office, 1897 to 1904, controversy raged about governance issues such as how to deal with crime and vice. Many people felt that City officials should “clean up crime” and try to get rid of “bawdy houses and gambling hells.” During his term in office, Mayor Humes ordered that such businesses must move farther south, away from Washington and Main Streets. Mayor Humes was accused of accepting money from interest groups and yet this was never proven, and at the time of his death newspaper editorials admitted that despite criticisms of his administration, Humes had never accepted bribes.
During the administration of Mayor Humes, the city grappled with major issues such as the development of the Cedar River watershed, setting up municipal lighting (streetlights), and the organization of street railways. Mayor Humes was in office six-and-a-half years which was the longest term of service until Gordon Clinton (1956-1964) and Charles Royer (1978-1990).
The impact of the death of Mayor Humes
After leaving office in 1904, Mayor Humes, age 55, tried to set up in law practice in Seattle again but he was not successful, and he said that he was broke (out of money). He announced that he and his brother James would go to Alaska. Mayor Humes had expertise in mining law and he thought he could set up a successful legal practice in Fairbanks.
Mayor Humes’ life ended in as dramatic a way as he had lived. He was only in Alaska for about two months when he had a heart attack. He collapsed and died on the streets of Fairbanks on November 9, 1904.
Richard A. Ballinger was mayor of Seattle 1904-1906.
Immediately upon word of the death, Seattle businessmen and civic leaders formed the Humes Memorial Committee. The chairman of the committee was Mayor Richard A. Ballinger who had defeated Mayor Humes in the election of 1904.
The immediate task of the committee was to arrange for the body of Mayor Humes to be brought back to Seattle. In order to do this in the winter conditions, a man was found, Alaskan mail carrier M.A. Mahoney, who could drive a dogsled carrying the body more than 350 miles from Fairbanks to Valdez (a port city). At Valdez, the body of Mayor Humes was put on a steamship bound for Seattle.
While awaiting the arrival of the body of the former mayor, the Humes Memorial Committee raised money to cover expenses, and they planned a municipal funeral to be held at the Grand Opera House. It was made clear in the announcements that any money left over after paying expenses would be given to the widow of Mayor Humes as she was now without income and still had some children under age 18.
On January 13, 1905, the Seattle Times newspaper reported that “the last tribute was paid amid snowflakes,” as the body of Mayor Humes was brought to Lake View Cemetery during light snowfall. There had been a private service for the family at their home, then a public service at the Grand Opera House, followed by the funeral cortege to the cemetery. All city offices were closed that day so that employees could attend the funeral.
A Memorial for Mayor Humes
On November 14, 1904, Seattle City Council adopted a resolution mourning the loss of Mayor Humes and offering condolences to his family. The resolution said that “as a tribute to his memory the name of Judge Humes will be given to an appropriate public place in the City.”
After the announcement of a plan for a memorial fountain, the next newspaper reference to “Humes Place” was almost a year later, in September 1905. A drawing of a fountain topped by a character from Greek mythology was shown as a proposed design, but it was stated that no design had yet been officially chosen by City Council.
After this, there was no further mention in newspaper articles about building a memorial for Mayor Humes. I suspect that the issue was with the designation of money for the project. Meanwhile another group which was raising money for a project, was working behind the scenes, on a different idea. Their idea was a Chief Seattle statue.
The Tillicum of Elttaes (Seattle spelled backwards) was an organization of Seattle boosters who started the Potlatch Celebration which preceded today’s Seafair. We don’t know if they intended for their Chief Seattle statue to be placed at the intersection of Fifth & Cedar, but it ended up there. In 1907 artist James Wehn, who also designed the seal of the City of Seattle, was commissioned to create the Chief Seattle statue which is now at Tillicum Place, as it was named. By the time the Chief Seattle statue was set up in 1912, no one seemed to remember that this intersection had previously been designated as the place for the Mayor Humes memorial.
Tillicum Place is at the intersection of Fifth Avenue, Cedar Street and Denny Way. It marks the intersection of the original land claims of early Seattle settlers Denny, Boren and Bell.
Humes Place (in a different place)
In 1905 the City Engineer’s office was working on another round of street name changes and I suspect that Assistant City Engineer James C. Jeffery was the one who chose to re-name “Hill Street” on north Queen Anne, as Humes Place.
James C. Jeffery had begun working in the City Engineers office in 1897 during Mayor Humes’ administration. Perhaps Jeffery quietly took the memorial to Mayor Humes into his own hands in 1905. This street-name change seemed to have slipped through as of the announcement of January 1906, without anyone noticing. By 1906, residents of the newly renamed Humes Place may not have remembered who “Humes” was. Mayor Humes had been controversial in his time, but no objections to the street name were recorded.
Sources:
James C. Jeffery 1864-1934
Find A Grave: a free resource which often has biographical information. Names can be searched, or search by using the assigned memorial account number:
James C. Jeffery (1864-1934) #69483597
Thomas Jefferson Humes (1849-1904) #27811883
HistoryLink Essays:
#2798 Richard A. Ballinger, mayor, by Phil Dougherty, 2020.
#3414 Seattle Neighborhoods: Queen Anne Hill, by David Wilma, 2001.
#1169 William Wood (1858-1917) leaves for the Gold Rush, by Louis Fiset, 1999.
Searchable Table of Seattle Street Renaming: starting with 1895. This page has links to the 1906 group of changes, and links to separate renamings such as neighborhoods north of Lake Union.
Seattle Municipal Archives Quick Information — population statistics and other facts.
Tillicum Place Chief Seattle Fountain, 1912.
